Budget Impasse Quotes

But when I look at the fact that today is 1,000 days that we have not had a budget for the United States of America, you know, the House, one of the things we did, we passed a budget last year. But that is still sitting over there at the Senate. And so we have got to get this country back on track.

I’m going to keep on working to get rid of the sequester. You get up and do your jobs every day; let’s make sure Washington gets up and does its job. And what makes me frustrated is sometimes the very folks who say they stand with our military proudly are the same ones who are standing in the way of fixing the sequester. It’s important to look at deeds and not words.

There's no time, place, or purpose of a government shutdown or default.

Government shutdowns do not actually become what the term implies. Two-thirds of the government cannot shut down. We're only talking about the third of government that's discretionary spending, and even at that, nobody loses their jobs, and nobody loses their Thanksgiving turkey. The whole thing has resulted from the Republican Party thinking they bought the farm back in 1995.

In the Israeli system, if the Knesset cannot reach agreement on a budget by the end of the year, one-twelfth of the previous year’s budget is automatically appropriated each month for 6 months. If at the end of 6 months, there is still no agreement, we automatically call new elections. We have never had to call an election.

Sequestration, sequestation - however you pronounce that word - and gridlock aren't all that bad.

I have been in Washington for 22 years and have seen us kick the can down the road. Well there is no more road to kick the can down.

Just the fact that we can't pass budgets in our Congress, just the fact that we are gridlocked in our own democracy, the fact that everybody who travels can see that we're not investing in our airports, in our rail, in our infrastructure and so forth, people are noticing a United States that is not getting the job done in some ways.

A government shutdown, it isn't the end of the world. It's a bad thing. The government stops working for a few days. We cover it a lot. Polls turn against who ever made it stop working.

I've already composed and written a letter to the House administration telling them to withhold my paycheck in the event of a lapse of appropriations.